Before some young girls even get to high school, they have already been recruited for forced prostitution.

According to Shae Invidiata, founder of local anti-human trafficking organization Free-Them, the average age of entry into forced prostitution in Canada is 13 years old.

“By the time they come to Grade 9 they’re 14 and they’re already trafficked, hypothetically,” said Invidiata as she stood in the hallway of Abbey Park High School last Friday afternoon.

Invidiata visited the North Oakville school to congratulate the students on the completion of their second annual Human Trafficking Awareness Week, which ran from November 12 to 16.

“This is a unique event in that this has been sparked by the heart and passion of the students,” she said.

Abbey Park’s Social Change Club setup a display in the school’s front lobby to educate their peers on the issues surrounding human trafficking and ran lunchtime activities on the issue for their peers throughout the week.

“It’s important in the schools to be raising this awareness, raising this issue and letting our students, letting our girls know that it is happening,” said Invidiata, “and just because you are in school or you come from a good family doesn’t mean you’re exempt from falling victim to trafficking.”

She said in university she watched two of her friends fall victim to human trafficking.

Invidiata said that human trafficking happens right here in Halton. She said in the last 18 months, along with front-line partners Walk With Me, Free-Them has helped fund the rescue of 160 victims of human trafficking in southwestern Ontario.

Out of those victims, 89 per cent were Canadians.

“It’s important to make the students aware,” said Invidiata.

Last year, Grade 12 student Anu Lalith Kuma brought the event to Abbey Park, and this year Monisha Kaura, also in Grade 12, took up the torch.

“This is such a great campaign and I didn’t know myself that this was happening locally,” she said. “People need to know because we need to stop this and what is happening is wrong. There are young girls my age that are out there selling their bodies.”

Monisha said she joined Abbey Park’s Social Change Club in Grade 9 and since then has been involved in a number of causes. Human Trafficking, however, spoke to her on a deeper level.

“I can connect because I am at that age and I can understand how girls are feeling,” she said. “I feel like I am educating people and I feel good about that.”

Students at the event were once again asked to put their names on a circular piece of purple paper known as a purple dot, which were then hung on the wall as a symbol of the fight against human trafficking.

Last year, the purple dots were collected and sent to Parliament as a show of support for a national action plan to combat human trafficking.

Canada’s action plan was introduced on June 6, 2012.

For more information about Free-Them, visit www.freethem.ca. For those interested in donating to Free-Them, send a cheque made out to Courage to Cope, Memo: Free-Them, to 83 Reynolds Street, Oakville, ON, L7J 3K3.